Von Kurt Landsberger
325 Seiten, gebunden, 2002
Sprache: Englisch
McFarland & Company
Neuwertig
One of the greatest of chess masters, William Steinitz (he changed his name from Wilhelm when he arrived in America) is recognized as the first world champion. More exactly (and thanks to the efforts of the editor of this book, Kurt Landsberger) he has been officially acknowledged as the first American world chess champion. Many letters and postcards survive: After years of unflagging effort to acquire all known letters to and from Steinitz, the editor has compiled a remarkable record of Steinitz and his contemporaries. Each letter, postcard, scrapbook item, newspaper or chess magazine article or other writing is described along with details of its location, ownership, and circumstances of discovery. It is then printed, nearly always in full, in English (many are translated from the German by Landsberger).
Kurt Landsberger, born in Prague with the name Steinitz, is the champion’s great-grandnephew. He divides his time between Verona, New Jersey, and Delray Beach, Florida.
Grandmaster Andy Soltis, eight times champion of the Marshall Chess Club, New York Post editor and Chess Life columnist, is the author of dozens of chess books. He lives in New York City.
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Table of Contents
To the Reader 1
Introduction 3
About the Letters 9
PART I : ASCENT
The First Years 21
Mason, Hoffer, Zukertort and Steinitz 28
A Glimpse of the New World 37
No “Shadowy Anonymus” 50
PART II : ON TOP OF THE WORLD
The Hydra-Headed Monster 71
Cuba, Chess and Congress 92
Steinitz the Author 107
“One of the Chosen People…” 117
Tschigorin and Gunsberg 131
Johnson’s Universal Cyclopaedia 150
The American Chess Master from New Jersey 159
Steinitz and Lasker 161
PART III : DECLINE
Hastings, St. Petersburg and Rostov 203
Letters to Pillsbury 209
Dr. Reider’s Medical Conclusions 227
Graphology 244
The Referee 246
The Last Years 252
Contracts 266
PART IV : BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Those Whose Lives Touched That of William Steinitz 279
Acknowledgments 313
Index 317
